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Black Death/Transcript
Transcript Text reads: The Mysteries of Life with Tim and Moby A boy, Tim, is walking through a park. A robot, Moby, is following him. Tim stops for a moment to sneeze. Tim reads from a typed letter. TIM: Dear Tim and Moby, What was the Black Death? Sincerely Yours, Florinda. TIM: The Black Death, or the Black Plague, was a pandemic that killed millions of people during the Middle Ages. A pandemic is when an infectious disease spreads over a large part of the world.An image shows a medieval town filled with dead and dying people. TIM: The Black Death first showed up in China in 1333, where it killed five million people in the Hubei province alone. A map shows China and the Hubei province. A skull and crossbones is over the name of the province. MOBY: Beep. TIM: I know, but that was just the beginning. Traders and soldiers carried the disease along the Silk Road, a trading route that stretched from China all the way to the Middle East. In October, 1347, a fleet of plague-infested merchant ships landed in Messina, Italy. Maps show the Silk Road and ships traveling from the Middle East to Messina. TIM: After that, the Black Death spread rapidly throughout Europe. An animation shows a map of Europe turning black, representing the spread of the disease. TIM: In just four years, the disease killed somewhere between one-third and two-thirds of everyone living in Europe. An illustration represents deaths in Europe from the Black Death between the years 1347 and 1351. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Yeah. It's pretty incredible. TIM: But that wasn't the end of it. Smaller outbreaks of the Black Plague recurred for centuries. A skull and crossbones image is used to show the outbreaks across Europe in the fifteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. TIM: There are a few reasons that so many people died. First of all, war, famine, and terrible weather were already making life pretty rough for people before illness struck. And hunger makes people much more susceptible to disease. An image shows sick, weak people. TIM: Second, medical practices at the time weren't exactly based on science. Nobody, not even doctors, had enough knowledge to figure out what caused the plague and how they could keep from spreading it. An image shows a medieval doctor holding a saw and studying a medical book. TIM: And the medical remedies available to sick people often did more harm than good. There is a bedridden patient next to the doctor. The patient is anxious and sweating, with spots on his face. TIM: One practice, called bloodletting, involved making a person bleed a lot so that a sickness would be bled out of them. An image shows a doctor making a cut in a woman’s arm. Blood is flowing from her arm into a bowl. MOBY: Beep. TIM: No, it doesn't work at all, and it's really dangerous! Folk remedies, like charms and herbs, were mostly harmless, but really didn't do any good, either. Images show various folk remedies. TIM: Most importantly, people were completely unaware of simple hygiene, like bathing, washing your hands, or properly disposing of garbage and human waste. Side by side images show a person washing his hands and a woman dumping human waste from a second-story window onto the ground. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Well, today most historians believe that the Black Death was really an outbreak of the disease called the bubonic plague. It's caused by the bacteria Yersinia pestis. An image shows bacteria seen through a microscope. TIM: Bubonic plague is mostly found in rodents, but it can spread to people when a flea carrying the bacteria jumps from a rat onto a human. An animation shows a sick-looking rat with a flea on its ear. Then the flea jumps from the rat onto a human leg and the infection spreads. TIM: Bubonic plague was marked by puffy bumps called buboes, which ooze pus and blood on people's necks, armpits, and groins. The skin also developed black patches and boils. Arrows indicate the places on the body the plague affects. Images show buboes, black patches, and boils. TIM: People infected with the disease often died within a week after they started showing symptoms. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Yeah, it was a scary time. Just so you know, today there is effective treatment for bubonic plague. So even if you get it, which is unlikely, you don't have to worry too much about dying from it. An image shows a young man getting a shot in a doctor's office. TIM: Interestingly, a number of scientists now think the Black Death may not have been caused by bubonic plague at all. They think it may have been caused by something else, like the anthrax bacteria, a viral disease like Ebola, smallpox, or even a combination of several diseases including the bubonic plague. Images show these various types of bacteria as seen through a microscope. TIM: Whatever the cause, the Black Death changed history. The pandemic scared people so much, the whole social order broke down. Graves filled up so fast that bodies were left unburied for days. An image shows a medieval town ravaged by the Black Death. TIM: In a panic, people would blame minorities and foreigners for spreading the plague, with bloody results. An image shows a medieval lynch mob TIM: People rejected the absolute authority of the Church, and even class hierarchies began to break down. An image shows a religious figure, a wealthy woman, and a peasant. They start out standing on different levels, then they are seen on one level. TIM: So many people died that there was hardly anyone left to work the fields. Because of this, peasants were eventually able to demand more rights and more money. An image shows a peasant in a field, harvesting grain with a scythe. TIM: After the first outbreak, the disease came back periodically for the next four hundred years in Iceland; London, England; Milan, Italy; Vienna, Austria; and Moscow, Russia. A map shows Europe and the North Atlantic region. Symbols mark the locations and year of the Black Death outbreaks as Tim names them. TIM: Thousands died as untrained professionals called "plague doctors" went from house to house offering ineffective remedies to the sick. An animation shows a person wearing a mask and a long, dark coat. He is walking through the streets of a plague-stricken town. Tim sneezes. MOBY: Beep. TIM: I don't have the Black Death, Moby. TIM: I think it's just allergies. Moby steps away from Tim.Category:BrainPOP Transcripts